Category: Decorating

What Do Your Frames Say About Your Style?

Everyone wants their living space to reflect their personality, and there’s no better way to achieve this than injecting your home with your style. Style is an interesting thing, as it’s a combination of aesthetics and attitude that help define who you are. Creating a living space that’s a reflection of your personal style is extremely fun, but it’s only successful if you understand what your style is and why. Frames—though they seem quite simple in nature—are actually great ways to test your style preferences and create the aesthetic you’re looking for.

Metal Frames

Metal frames are sleek and sophisticated. Because metal frames come in a variety of designs, from highly ornate to incredibly simple, you can make a long list of statements with them. Ornate metal frames can put a modern twist on classic design. On the other end of the spectrum, minimal metal frames can offer stark contrast to the art they hold, making the subject of a painting or photo the star of the show.

Wooden Frames

Like simple metal frames, plain wooden frames lead all eyes to the subject of the art behind the glass. But, unlike metal frames, wooden frames that are simple in form but rich in grain can create warmth and a rustic vibe.

Neutral Color Frames

Using neutral color frames allows you to create a consistent aesthetic throughout your living space. While “neutral” definitely doesn’t mean “boring,” neutral colors are often used to create a more laid-back, relaxed vibe.

Brightly Colored Frames

The opposite of neutral color frames are brightly colored frames, which can create an energetic, vibrant living space that is meant to attract attention.

Want to learn more about frames and how you can use them to create the perfect living space? Follow Frame Warehouse on Facebook!

Creating a Comfy Boutique Hotel Atmosphere

Boutique hotels are the preferred accommodations of many travelers for a long list of reasons—one of which is the rejuvenating atmosphere that they often provide. While boutique hotels across the country have certainly taken different approaches to their interior design, they all consistently pay close attention to detail to make sure that each and every guest is comfortable. Below are a few ways that you can achieve this in your own boutique hotel.

Give each room a sense of history.

Every boutique hotel has a story to tell, and telling this story through photographs and art is a wonderful way to create interest and warmth in your hotel rooms. By framing photographs and art pieces that are relevant to your property, city, and even family, you can share this story with your guests.

Include a fresh element in every room.

Nearly all guests love to arrive to their hotel room to a bouquet of fresh flowers—particularly if these flowers are from a local florist and are grown nearby. It’s a good idea to ask about any allergies before adding flowers to guests’ rooms, but the extra touch and attention will go a long way to creating the perfect boutique hotel atmosphere.

If flowers aren’t possible, try placing potted plants on the balcony or leaving the windows open for a fresh breeze when the weather is nice.

Forgo the typical hotel bedding.

Hotel bedding is, for the most part, quite comfortable; however, guests expect more than a white duvet from a boutique hotel. Handmade quilts, locally made blankets, and other unique bedding that’s special to your city will impress your guests and create an atmosphere that no other hotel can achieve.

If you own or manage a boutique hotel and are interested in frames for your property, call the team at Frame Warehouse! We’ll be happy to help you choose frames that create the look you’re going for.

3 Ways to Use Frames in Your Bed and Breakfast

The appeal of a bed and breakfast is that it offers travelers a more personalized experience than a standard hotel. When your guests book a room at your B&B, they anticipate interacting with you and their fellow travelers. With a bit of attention to detail and some surprising uses for frames, you can create an atmosphere that will promote interaction and that your guests will miss long after they’ve checked out of their rooms.

Celebrate your guests by framing their photos. People choose to stay at a B&B because they want to feel a connection to a new city and its people. What better way to do that than to integrate them into your B&B’s story by framing their portraits and hanging them throughout the property? You can start with a gallery wall and expand into other areas of the B&B as your guest list continues to grow, or, if you prefer not to have too many portraits hanging, you can continually switch them out to keep the gallery wall interesting.
Create dry erase boards out of frames. This fun project will encourage interaction between guests and the staff at your bed and breakfast. Frame pieces of paper that match your décor and attach a dry erase marker to each frame with a piece of twine. Guests can then write on the glass with the dry erase marker. In common spaces, encourage guests to write greetings to one another. In bedrooms, these boards can be used to leave welcome messages to new guests who are checking in.
Frame important guest information. Wi-Fi passwords, breakfast hours, important phone numbers, room service menus—these and other key pieces of information can be framed and placed around the hotel for quick and easy reference.

If you own a bed and breakfast and want more information on how Frame Warehouse can help you create the perfect atmosphere for your guests, give our team a call! You can also follow us on Facebook.

Sleek Frames for Modern Hotel Design

It’s possible for interior designs to encompass both modern and classic elements, and that’s what a lot of new hotels are going for. While comfort and functionality are the two most important considerations in the design of a hotel room, designers must also consider how their designs reflect the brands of the hotels in which the rooms are located. Hanging art is a wonderful way to bring personality into a room while reinforcing the hotel’s brand, and a classic, sleek frame is the perfect way to accent artwork. But there’s more to a frame than meets the eye. Below are three different frames that would work wonderfully in today’s hottest new hotels.

A Simple Black Frame

Black is the neutral of choice for many interior designers because it works well with nearly every color palette. A simple black frame allows the artwork and overall design of the room to make a statement while the frame blends seamlessly with other modern design choices throughout the space.

A Frame with Wood Grain

Many interior designers love to blend rustic and modern elements, and a lot of today’s hotel brands mesh well with this design aesthetic, even if they lean more to the modern side. A frame with a natural wood grain is a fantastic way to soften the modern design style and bring warmth to a hotel room.

A Colorful Frame

Frames are typically neutral colors in order to let the artwork they hold really stand out; however, a brightly colored frame can complement the artwork while bringing a modern feel to a hotel room’s design. A talented interior designer can use the brightest of frames in a way that creates a sleek yet cozy feel throughout a room.

Interested in how Frame Warehouse can help you with your hotel’s framing needs? Give us a call!

Office Décor: 3 Ways to Support Productivity

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Professionals spend 40+ hours in the office each week. This is a lot of time, and it’s no wonder that their workspaces can have a profound effect on their productivity. A functional office is integral to success, but there’s more to an effective workspace than having enough desks and storage. By paying attention to the office’s décor, business owners and managers can actually support their teams’ productivity.

Frame brand values. Employees who truly believe in the work that they’re doing are far more effective than those who only see their work as a means to a pay check. The best way to get employees excited about their work is to reinforce a brand that they love. Type out and frame brand values (in the right brand colors and fonts, of course) and put them around the office to inspire your team.
Frame motivational sayings. This may seem a bit kitschy, but it works! By hanging inspirational phrases, you can create a visual pep talk that can help employees stay focused. This can also be a fun team activity, as you can have team members submit and vote on their favorite motivational quotes.
Frame inspiration boards. Professionals are all motivated by different things, so it’s important to remember that their personal inspiration is integral to their success. To spruce up your office’s décor and support your team’s productivity, plan a team building exercise in which everyone creates and frames their own inspiration boards to hang in their workstations.

Interested in how Frame Warehouse can see to your office’s framing needs? Contact us on Facebook or on our website!

3 Surprising Ways to Organize Your Craft Room

Your craft room probably says much more about you than you realize: your interests, how you spend your free time, your favorite colors, your organizational style. If you want your craft room to say that you’re an extremely organized, tidy person, try implementing these three surprising tips.

Use frames to hang samples. If you work with fabrics or yarn, odds are you have swatches cluttering up your craft room. A great way to display them is to hang them in a frame. First, find a large frame and remove the glass and back. Next, use a stapler to attach twine, yarn, or any other similar material to the back of the frame, creating a line on which you can hang your samples. Depending on how large your frame is, you can evenly space multiple rows of twine to create a good amount of space for your swatches.
Create a chalkboard or dry erase board to keep up with your crafting schedule. If you have a lot of projects, it can be easy to become disorganized if you’re wrapping up one craft and immediately starting another. To get better organized—and give yourself plenty of heads up when preparing for your next craft—create a chalkboard or dry erase board. You’ll start with one large frame for both of these projects. If you’re making a chalkboard, remove the glass and back of the frame and replace them with a piece of material that has been covered in chalkboard paint. For a dry erase board, remove the back and you can write directly on the glass with dry erase markers.
Decorate your space. This sounds a little counterintuitive—add things to the room in order to keep it better organized? Creating a decorated space will encourage you to buy and use organizational tools, including pen holders and colorful storage boxes.

Need a bit of guidance in picking the right frames? Contact Frame Warehouse! We’ll be happy to help you get your craft room organized.

3 Surprising Ways to Use Wallpaper

Wallpaper may have somewhat of a reputation for being out of date, but it’s coming back in style. Get ahead of the trend by using wallpaper in these fun ways to create a vibrant look.

Treat Wallpaper Like the Work of Art It Is

If you haven’t looked at wallpaper yet, it might be time to give it a chance. It’s not just your grandma’s florals anymore. (Although, to be honest, we love those florals, too.) Try framing a piece of a pattern that you adore and hanging it on a gallery wall. Want a bit more drama? Frame a large piece of wallpaper in a bright, bold pattern and hang it in an ornate frame over your fireplace or bed.

Transform Your Doors

Interior doors can be so, well, boring. Instead of a standard eggshell color door, why not create a stunning portal into your favorite room in your home by covering it with wallpaper? This works best on a flat door without any decorative molding, but can be striking in both subtle and loud prints.

Highlight Your Fireplace

A fireplace can be the most breathtaking feature in a home, but more often than not creating that feature requires a good amount of cash. If you’re looking for a way to make your fireplace stand out without breaking the bank, try wallpaper. By wallpapering the area above and around your fireplace (if it comes out of the wall), you can quickly create a centerpiece to your house that’s both unique and beautiful. The key is to go all the way up to the ceiling with the wallpaper to create a more dramatic effect.

Like Frame Warehouse on Facebook for more home décor and framing tips!

Work from Home? Create an Inspiration Corner

Working from home can be equal parts blessing and curse. You have a degree of freedom that you wouldn’t have in an office, as well as all of the comforts of home at your fingertips throughout the day. But working from home can make you feel isolated, and a workspace that fails to inspire you can drain all of the excitement out of the perks that working from home can provide. To avoid this problem, try creating an inspiration corner.

What Is an Inspiration Corner?

An inspiration corner is a small space in your home, preferably near your workspace, in which you can display items that motivate and inspire you. Think about it like a three dimensional vision board; instead of gluing images to a poster board, you can display a wide range of objects that you love. Because your inspiration corner might contain any number of objects of varying shapes and sizes, it’s a good idea to put it on a bookshelf.

What Should Go into Your Inspiration Corner?

What you put in your inspiration corner is, really, up to you. Try starting with an item that reminds you why you work so hard—perhaps a framed photo of you and your spouse, a drawing your child made in school, or a letter from your grandparents. Once you have your anchor item, branch out and add anything that inspires you. From art to your favorite books, let your imagination (and your inspiration) run wild.

How Do You Use an Inspiration Corner?

Your inspiration corner is the perfect place to focus your attention when you need a bit of motivation. For instance, if you’re facing a challenge at work, take a look at your inspiration corner and let your mind wander a bit. This will help clear your thoughts and refocus on what really matters. Once you’re grounded, you’ll be able to look at the challenge from a fresh perspective.

Interested in getting new frames for your inspiration corner? Give Frame Warehouse a call!

3 Chic Ways to Display Family Heirlooms

One of the fastest ways to bring warmth to your home is to fill it with history. Family heirlooms are a wonderful way to celebrate your roots while decorating with items that create personality in your living space. From antique cameras to vintage photos, your family’s treasures can create an intimate, interesting home décor style.

Out in the Open

Displaying family heirlooms on bookshelves and other easily accessible areas of your home may make you a bit nervous—especially if they are fragile—but can create an interesting juxtaposition between the old and the new in your home. If you’re worried about little ones knocking items off of shelves, try this decorating style with items that aren’t breakable and/or easily moved, such as old keepsake boxes, coat racks, etc.

Behind Closed Doors

With the right curio or bookshelf with glass doors, you can keep your family heirlooms front and center while protecting them from kids, pets, and anything else that may cause them to take a tumble. Putting your family keepsakes behind glass protects them from dust and creates a chic, elegant display that will draw the attention of visitors, ensuring that your family heirlooms (and your taste in furniture) are admired and appreciated by all of your guests.

Open Shelving

Open shelving is extremely trendy right now, and for good reason. You can use metallic shelving to display antique heirlooms in a way that creates textural interest. Additionally, a wood shelf with a distinct grain can highlight the warmth that your family heirlooms bring into the room. No matter what material you choose, an open shelving display will bring a flair of modern design to your home that can be very interesting next to the keepsakes these shelves hold.

Have old family photos that you want to frame before you put them on display? Frame Warehouse can help! Call us or like us on Facebook for more information.

Creating a Comfortable Guest Room

Creating a guest bedroom is a wonderful way to use spare space in your house, and paying attention to detail when decorating this room is key. A comfortable guest room means a place where your friends and family will have everything that they need at their fingertips, and these three tips will help you create a space they may never want to leave.

Invest in good bedding. Every traveler daydreams of snuggling into a soft bed at the end of a flight or road trip. Soft sheets and a fluffy comforter will welcome your guests with open arms, and you can choose a fabric that makes a statement with florals, geometric prints, or even solids. Because people won’t be sleeping in this bedding every night, it will last.
Use frames. Hanging framed photos or art can create a lot of warmth in the space, and your guests will appreciate the cozy atmosphere. You can also frame the Wi-Fi password and place it on a desk or nightstand (your guests will love this!).
Create a place for suitcases. For short-term stays, closets and dressers aren’t really necessary; however, all guests, even if they’re only staying one night, will need somewhere to put a suitcase. A vintage luggage holder is always a fun addition to a guest room. You can also put a trunk at the foot of the bed or under the window. This will offer both storage and a flat place for guests to rummage through their luggage.

Want more home décor tips? Check out the Frame Warehouse Facebook page.